all shall love me and despair
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Drabbles for Autumn Tyzula Week 2016. 07. candles— their first time is going to be the most romantic thing in the entire universe.
1. trouble

"Princess Azula, we're not supposed to come in here!" Ty Lee whispers too loudly, her stomach turning somersaults. "This is the Fire Lord's—"

"I know," Azula cuts off, like Ty Lee is the stupidest girl in the world. (Well, maybe she is, compared to _Azula_ — Azula's at the top of every class and the best firebender at school and can always come up with some clever thing to say back to the teachers. Azula manages to make everybody look dumb and incompetent.) "Don't be such a baby. I should've asked Mai instead."

"No, no, I'm not a baby!" she protests, slipping through the curtain into the throne room. Her heart leaps up to her throat as they dart between the massive pillars, even though there's no one around to see them; an uncanny echo rings out with their footfalls.

"Grandfather's holding a meeting," Azula says, looking calm and unruffled in a place definitely not meant for little girls. "We won't get caught, trust me. I just wanted to practice for when I'm Fire Lord."

"But you're not going to be Fire Lord," Ty Lee blurts out before she can stop herself. She might not be very smart, but she knows the line of succession— Azulon to Iroh to Lu Ten, maybe Ozai to Zuko, with Azula right at the end of that line.

"That's what you think," Azula scoffs, with such iron-voiced conviction that Ty Lee even starts to believe her; the truth is whatever Azula wants it to be. "Daddy says he would make a _much_ better ruler than Grandfather or Uncle, and obviously he wouldn't let anyone as pathetic as Zuzu succeed him. It'll be me." Then she strides over to the throne and pushes herself onto it, her feet not touching the floor. "Nice view from up here."

"If you're Fire Lord, I want to be Fire Lady, then," Ty Lee insists. " _I'm_ your best friend. More than Mai."

"You are," Azula declares, setting part of the pit on fire with a wave of her hand. "And you can rule by my side— well, little stuff. I'll manage everything important like the army and the schools and the economy, but you can take care of the festivals and the decorations and—"

" _Azula!_ "

They both suddenly freeze. That sounds a lot like—Princess Ursa. "Get down from there at once, young lady," she demands as she bursts in, quivering with fury. "Do you have any idea how disrespectful— how _dangerous_ — right this instant!"

Uh-oh. Busted.


	2. wild

Imprisoned is the freest you've ever been, free to weep and scream and caterwaul like the villain you really are. No more need to maintain your faint veneer of civilization. No more need to plaster on a smirk and greet the day, to conquer, to burn. No more need to bathe or dress or even feed yourself. But then Ty Lee comes to visit and for the first time you are ashamed— of your unwashed hair, of the bruises littering your arms from constant needle pricks, of the shabbiness of your asylum garb. She's older, taller, prettier than she was at fourteen; less vapid, a bit sad and doe-eyed. You get to watch all these people grow up and out, yet remain static; a statue, frozen in disgrace. Not for the first time, you think you should be dead.

"Why do you have to be so mean all the time?" Ty Lee asks, her hands on her hips. She wants an answer, you realize. Maybe she's been waiting her entire life for an answer.

You laugh. As if your vast reams of cruelty could be encapsulated with _mean_. "Maybe I was just born that way," you suggest. "A twisted bitch. But you can't accept that, can you? You always had to have someone else do the thinking, always had to have a pair of heels to slobber at, and you picked me to hero-worship. Well, I can't help anymore, Ty. You'll have to use that brain of yours for more than figuring out which boy's cock you want to suck today."

Mai would slap you. Ty Lee just looks at you with those damn doe-eyes again and suddenly you feel cheap and vulgar, like a two-copper whore. "I came here," she murmurs, "because I thought you might have _changed_. But you won't, and it's not that you're some crazy monster. You're just scared."

"Me. _Scared_."

"Yeah," she says, turning towards the door. "I'm not stupid, Zula. You've been scared your whole life— of being nice to people, or loving people. And I still care about you— not just 'cause you're so smart!— but to be honest, I don't really want to see you again."

"You know how I am. I don't see why you expected anything else."

She smiles, a little sadly and a little mockingly, and before she can walk away like everyone does, you say, "Wait. I'm... I'm sorry. Don't go."

Ty Lee has the dubious distinction of being the only person you've ever apologized to, and she turns around. You don't even know what you said it for, for calling her a slut (again) or for locking her up in prison or for breaking her wrist when you were kids, but then you kiss her so hard she stumbles into the wall. She smells of cinnamon and vanilla and a warmth you can't find in this sterile room, ever since the last shade of your mother vanished. "I missed you," comes out as a gasp once you pull away, the closest you'll ever get to _I love you_. "Admit it. You missed me, too. You missed _this_."

"Damn you," she says under her breath, but she never could tell you no, and then she kisses you back like she's trying to suck the madness out through your mouth.


	3. kittens

"Out of all the terrible ideas my brother's ever had in his life, this has to be the worst… and believe me, I know."

"He says you need to learn responsibility and compassion and stuff," Ty Lee chirps, setting the wriggling kitten-bunny down on the carpet with a kiss. "Look, isn't he cute? I named him Sir Fuzzyboots!"

" _You're_ cute," Azula replies automatically, and Ty Lee beams so wide her entire face lights up. "What am I supposed to do with it?" she continues, giving the creature's floppy ear a hesitant poke— not a stroke. Definitely not a stroke. "It's useless. At least you can ride a komodo rhino or milk a cow-pig. What can this do?"

" _He_ doesn't have to _do_ anything," Ty Lee says, depositing the ball of fluff— Sir Fuzzyboots— into her lap, where he contentedly curls up and purrs. "You can just... love him. Because he's yours."

Well. She considers shoving him off, but... well. Dammit. Even her frozen heart isn't immune to the mewling noises or the soft fur, or the way he's trying to climb her tunic in excitement. "All right, then," she declares, giving Sir Fuzzyboots a dignified pat on the head, "you'll be my animal companion when I dominate the earth. Any day now. I wanted a dragon when I was a kid, but I suppose you'll have to do; beggars can't be choosers."

"Baby steps," she thinks she hears Ty Lee mutter under her breath, and very deliberately ignores it.


	4. mountains

Mai is pretty sure— at least ninety-nine percent— that Azula and Ty Lee are fucking; there are these half-smothered breathy _noises_ coming from Azula's bedroll practically every night, purple marks on the column of Ty Lee's neck the next morning. And she should probably be scandalized (except she's always known that neither of them cares much about vulgarity, what girls ought to do) or jealous (except she still can't forget the boy who once picked her bunches of wildflowers and defended soldiers with a cracking voice), so instead she turns a blind eye, the same way she's been ignoring so many other things on this odyssey of dust and grime and goals that are never quite met. It's not her business, really, how they want to stave off the mind-numbing, stomach-churning boredom of war; it's not her business, really, if Azula wants to get a head start on collecting concubines.

She finds them kissing one frosty evening when they're camped outside a mountain range, Azula's hands tangled through Ty Lee's thick hair as though she's trying to find a handle, Ty Lee tilting her head far far back with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. And spirits, she knows that this is going to end in tears, that Azula breaks her toys with casual cruelty and that Ty Lee will resist any attempt at being colonized, but she says nothing and keeps collecting firewood. Mai has to hunt down the boy she (once?) loved and bring him back home in chains; she has not had any spare room in her heart for a very long time.

(Later, when she contemplates her regrets in the bowels of the Boiling Rock, as Ty Lee chooses _her_ and Azula gets hauled away paralyzed and shrieking, this is all she can come up with.)


	5. wishes

Princess Kazumi doesn't often ask her mother questions, because her mother doesn't like questions— she likes answers, answers that Kazumi should know already. But there's one that's been burning on the tip of her tongue for a lifetime, one she's afraid to utter, and it happens to spill out as they're eating dinner in silence.

"Mother," she starts, then almost chokes on the words. "Do you... love me?"

"What a foolish thing to ask," Mother snaps in response, looking down at her like she has dirt on her face, and her heart sinks. "Love is a weakness, Kazumi— haven't I told you that a thousand times? I appreciate your skills, and the role you will play in ruling this nation some day, but no, I don't _love_ you. Don't talk so sentimentally ever again."

Do you love Father? she wants to ask, but of course the answer is no. Her parents' marriage was about refilling the royal coffers and producing heirs, not any great romance— their separate bedrooms, and the fact that she's never seen them touch, serve as testament to that. Did you love _your_ father? she wants to ask too, but she's almost certain that will just be met with a slap.

"Let me tell you a story," Mother says suddenly, spearing a gyoza. "I loved somebody, once— really, I did, believe it or not. I hated all of the other noble girls my mother tried to shove at me, yet this one was different. She had six identical sisters and always tried to distinguish herself, and she managed to intrigue me with her _dim mak_ skills; I had another friend, but she was betrothed to my brother and could never be mine, so this girl and I became inseparable. Well, except for when she ran off to the circus."

"Did she love you?" she blurts out.

"She worshipped me," Mother corrects with a thin smile. "She would do anything I asked without hesitation, because she thought I was flawless— and she was right, of course. Perhaps we were even _in_ love. But she turned out to be capable of betraying me, in the end."

"Why?" Kazumi can't imagine anyone daring to betray Mother, or even to disobey her; they'd be pumped full of lightning before they could blink.

"My other friend loved the traitor more than she feared me, apparently," Mother spits, "and she helped him escape from the Boiling Rock when she was supposed to be capturing him. So I went to kill her, the only fate a traitor to the nation deserves, when that girl decided to block my chi and knock me paralyzed to the ground."

"That's awful," Kazumi exhales, feeling a fierce rush of anger. She (secretly) doesn't think she loves her mother much either, but she doesn't want her attacked by an enemy of the state and left helpless; she's never heard anything like that about Fire Lord Azula, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, avatar-slayer, before. "She should've obeyed you, if she worshipped you so much."

She expects a moral at the end, something Mother's stories always have; that patriotism is the highest virtue, that trust is for fools, that life is about power and those too weak to seek it. "No, I got what I deserved," Mother insists cryptically, instead. "And they're dead now. I killed the three of them myself. We all got what we deserved, no matter what I wish could be different." Her eyes look foggy again, the way they sometimes turn when Mother hasn't taken her herbs, and the way Kazumi is never supposed to mention. "Go," she shoos, waving a hand, even though Kazumi hasn't eaten more than a few bites of rice yet. "Go. I'm bored of you. Leave me be."

Kazumi goes with a respectful bow, and she doesn't ask for this girl's name. She's pushed her luck enough for one day.


	6. unplanned

i promise the next couple of drabbles are ridiculously fluffy, guys

* * *

"Zuko's gone," Azula snarls as she shoves the door open, her gait stiff and a nasty crop of bruises blooming on her face. "If you knew anything, if he told you _one fucking thing_ about where he was headed or what his plans were, I'd suggest you inform me quickly."

"I had no idea!" Ty Lee protests before Azula resorts to enhanced interrogation techniques, almost falling off of the bed in shock. "Why would he want to leave? He had his crown and his family and Mai and—"

"He wants to go help the avatar, apparently," Azula spits out, striding over to her. "Who is alive, by some miracle. To restote peace and love and justice, or whatever he calls weakness. Well, he's signed his own death warrant— once a traitor, always a traitor. I should've known." She grabs Ty Lee by the shoulders with smoldering hands. "I have to be able to trust you. I have to. At least _you_. Say you're mine. Say it. Say it _now."_

 _No,_ Ty Lee wants to spit back at her, _no, I'm not, and I never will be. Maybe you took me away from a circus I loved, maybe you pointed your finger and made me fight while your father spoke through you, maybe you could kill me right here and now, but you don't own me. You can't own a person, no matter how badly you want that— I'm not a sparrowkeet whose wings need to be clipped. _

"I'm yours, princess," she recites like a poem learned by heart, and kisses Azula hard on the mouth to calm her. "I'm always going to be yours."


	7. candles

"Azula... wow. _Wow_."

"I am pretty impressive, aren't I?" Azula declares smugly, but without any of her usual bite. "I wanted our first time to be the most superior first time in the universe. Better than Zuko and Mai's, at least."

Ty Lee's mouth gapes open as she takes it in— fire lily petals scattered across the massive bed, new silk sheets, sticks of artfully arranged heliotrope incense, and... scented candles? "Wow," she says yet again. "You really went all out, huh?"

"When do I not?" Azula asks, shrugging, and Ty Lee jumps to kiss her— knocking over one of the candles in the process.

"Crap crap crap crap crap—"

"It's nothing," Azula dismisses, putting out Ty Lee's singed sleeve with the merest flick of her wrist. "Well, to me it's nothing. You're lucky you have me to take care of you."

"I am pretty lucky," Ty Lee agrees, the corner of her mouth turning up. "Now, there's something I'd _really_ like you to take care of..."

Azula smiles back— really smiles, for once, almost a little shy— and starts to pull Ty Lee's burnt shirt off over her head.


End file.
